


The Odd Case of Percy Jackson

by MoonSilverSprite



Series: Buzzfeed Unsolved - Fictional Disappearances [6]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Conspiracy Theories, Mystery, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 18:12:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19817776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonSilverSprite/pseuds/MoonSilverSprite
Summary: For two weeks, Percy Jackson supposedly vanished after his mother's disappearance. Tonight, Buzzfeed Unsolved look at what happened to him and what the truth may instead be.





	The Odd Case of Percy Jackson

Okay guys, this one is a little different than usual.

_How so?_

Because the kid came back, his mom was alive, but the whole story stinks like rotten fish.

_Right. Sure._

In 2005, twelve-year-old Percy Jackson lived with his mom, Sally Jackson, in Brooklyn. The father is an unknown. Sad, same old story.

_Sally Jackson said that Percy’s dad had plans for him when he grew up. But the whole thing is still a little curious._

Why would a guy have plans for his son and then leave before the kid was born?

_That’s one of the theories, my friend. Sally Jackson later related to friends that Percy’s father was lost at sea. But we have no idea on what his identity was, so that remains unknown at present._

Percy Jackson suffered from both dyslexia and ADHD and spent no longer than a year in each boarding school he was sent to by his mom. His full name was Perseus Jackson, since his mother decided that he was the only Ancient Greek hero who didn’t die horribly.

_(wheeze) I’m sorry, that’s still a little odd. I – I can see why he goes by ‘Percy’._

When Percy was only a toddler, his mother married a man named Gabe Ugliano, a supposedly distasteful man. Strangely enough, Gabe disappeared sometime after this event, but police closed his file not long after and labelled him ‘deceased’.

_Why? That seems – strange._

We dabble in strange, friend. Amazed you haven’t worked it out already.

_Odd things happened to Percy before 2005, however. When he was in third grade, he reported to his teachers that a strange man was following him. The teachers called the police and the man left before they could arrive._

Percy never stayed for more than one year in each boarding school he was sent to. In fourth grade, he pushed the wrong lever on a field trip to Sea World Shark Pool and flooded the whole trip. (wheeze) Sorry, guys. (cough) In fifth grade, Percy accidentally fired a war cannon on another field trip, which hit the school bus at the Saratoga Battlefield.

_But in the summer of 2006, things definitely began to change._

After being dropped back off at home when the school year ended, Gabe Ugliano reported that Sally and Percy left in his 1978 Camaro through a hurricane. The mother and son were going to Montauk upstate, but they never got there. And believe me, that is the least of the weird events that would happen over the next several weeks.

_When they didn’t return, Gabe called Sally’s mobile. When police started a search, they found the Camaro on a North Long Island road. It had been badly burned, the roof torn off and the axle broken. The car had flipped over and skidded for several hundred metres. It is not known if Sally and Percy were inside the car, but given how the accident would have killed them if they were inside, this theory has been ruled out._

How did that crash happen? It just looks out of nowhere.

_The police never worked out how. Residents said they heard nothing unusual, so the idea of a hit-and-run was ruled out. At this point, Gabe told police that his son was a troublemaker and had ‘expressed violent tendencies’. Police were unsure whether Percy was involved, especially given that he was only twelve, but they put out an AMBER Alert nevertheless._

Two weeks later, Percy was seen in New Jersey after a bus incident.

‘Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of his mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where he accosted several elderly female passengers. The bus exploded on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after Jackson fled the scene. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the boy may be travelling with two teenage accomplices. His stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, has offered a cash reward leading to his capture.’

_I – how would a twelve-year-old boy manage to cause a bus to explode?_

It might have been something wrong with the engine. But yeah, a fugitive coincidentally being on a bus that catches fire the same way as his mother’s car? Just plain weird. The other two children were described as ‘a tall, dark-haired boy aged between fourteen and nineteen’ and ‘a blonde girl aged between twelve and fourteen’. Although their names have not been released, there are suspicions.

_He was supposedly seen in St. Louis after an incident on the famous arch. He was seen running away from the site and – diving into the Mississippi._

He jumped into the river? Was this kid high for two weeks?

_No clue._

On June 14th in a diner in Denver, Colorado, a man was seen with Percy Jackson and two other minors, buying them cheeseburgers. The man, described as a muscular, leather-clad man with knife scars on his face and a crew cut. According to witnesses, the man made them feel ‘intimidated’ and a waitress reported that he paid with gold coins instead of money. The currency has not been identified.

_June 21st: Percy was next seen in Santa Monica, where there was an explosion at a beach. Soon after this, he was caught by police and the whole story came out._

Apparently, the man from the diner had kidnapped Percy in Long Island, as well as two other unidentified adolescents –

_Which we’ll get to later, by the way._

Percy Jackson said the commotion on the bus in New Jersey was because he was trying to get away from his kidnapper, despite the fact that none of the early reports mentioned the supposed ‘kidnapper biker’ on board. This man had also caused the explosion in St. Louis. At the diner, the man had also been seen threatening the three children outside, according to the waitress.

_However, it is strange than not a single one of the reports from the first ten days of this case match up with this information._

The explosion had been caused by a bullet hitting a gas main damaged in an earthquake, after Percy had grabbed the gun from his abductor and escaped.

_The two other children in custody were a boy and a girl. The ones from the bus. Here is a clip of Percy Jackson after he was rescued._

‘All I want is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew…somehow…we’d be okay. And I know he’ll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store.’

_(wheeze)_ Cheeky kid! I mean, I know he’s been kidnapped, mentally tortured and – was there any reports of –

_No, dude, none at all._

Why would a lunatic take kids and blow up everywhere he went and not mess with the kids? I mean – why do any of this? It doesn’t make sense.

_Sally Jackson was returned to her apartment, refusing to discuss the case. It is possible that the man – or accomplices of his – had hidden her away so that Percy would do as he said, but this is still quite a stretch. Gabe Ugliano supposedly left the apartment a week later and never came back._

So he wouldn’t have to sell his electronics all over Los Angeles?

_(wheeze) Probably._

There has been no further issues involving Perseus Jackson in the years since, no sign of his stepfather or any indication as to who the kidnapper was.

_Which leads to our theories._

The first is that this was a cult of some sort. The biker was a member and was taking the children to California, psychologically torturing them and making them take part in the explosions. It would explain why Percy attacked women on a bus and why he was on the observation deck of the St. Louis arch. This man had abducted the two other children prior to June 2005, perhaps many years before, and brainwashed them. Percy was only a recent addition, which enabled him to be more confident in escaping.

_There seem to be a few other reports of children having gone missing that witnesses connected to Percy Jackson. In December 2007, someone watching the footage of Percy after he was rescued stated that they had seen him enter a house in West Point, New York. The owner of the house, a Doctor Frederick Chase, had pulled his daughter out of school when she was seven, in 1999, stating that she was being homeschooled. However, his daughter, Annabeth, had not lived at the family home since that date._

This is getting weirder. I didn’t think it would.

_The footage taken of Percy after his rescue was found in the FBI files. The girl with him is said to bear a striking resemblance to Frederick Chase, implying that she was taken by the biker too. However, Frederick Chase managed to produce documentation stating that Annabeth was at a school in Long Island and the case was supposedly closed. Here are some similar but unofficially connected cases that the FBI think could have an answer._

Actress Beryl Grace’s children Thalia and Jason, aged six and two, seemed to disappear from the public eye in 1994. She stated that her son had been taken by ‘a powerful being’ and her daughter had run away. Beryl Grace died in a car accident in 2004, while drunk.

_Luke Castellan was nine when he ran away from home in Westport, Connecticut in 1996. He was spotted across the country in the three years after this. Strangely enough, someone in Brooklyn later identified him as running out of a house with two girls and an older boy in 1999. The picture taken of them before they entered, as part of a still life project, was given to the FBI. While they say they may know the girls in the photo, they have not released anything._

Could those girls be Annabeth and Thalia? They’d be around the right age.

_Maybe._

But why would some kids decide to live homeless, in this century? And how does this link to a cult?

_These children may have been psychologically tormented. Perhaps even by the government, which may explain why this seems like a cover-up. Maybe the children’s absent parents are members of the cult._

Our second theory is that Percy Jackson is in fact, a half-human hybrid.

_What?_

That his father was an alien. And the other kids are the children of aliens. That the biker was an alien.

_I have officially gone mad working with that theory._

Well, goodnight, everyone. That is all we have on the strange child that is Percy Jackson. Tell us your thoughts on whether this was a boy gone rogue, a cult abducting children or something paranormal.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time since I read _Percy Jackson_ , but I think I did OK.
> 
> When I was a child, I loved reading about the Greek myths. I was about seven when I received a book on Greek myths and I did not find any of them strange whatsoever. Women being turned into cows, a woman with snakes for hair, the sky being held up by a giant; I did not question any of this.
> 
> When I was eight, I read another book on Greek myths, this time an Usborne double edition with Norse myths. (I think the book company was British and it was a few years old even fifteen years ago) That was where I was introduced to Norse myths. Because of this, even over a decade before I became a Marvel fan, Loki was my favorite mythological being, even beating out Medusa and Odysseus, even I pronounced his name incorrectly when I was eight.
> 
> That probably explains what I was like as a child.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this story and I hope to write another one soon. Remember, origamidragons said they were going to do a _Percy Jackson_ story, but don't pressure them. Writing's a very hard job.


End file.
